The Naval Air Warfare Center Aircraft Division (NAWCAD) is leading the Navy’s first comprehensive study since 1964 to update aviator size requirements, improve aircrew gear and equipment, and expand access for prospective future aviators. This is the Navy’s first aircrew study to include women and minorities.
“We are excited to launch this historic study that will improve the readiness, protection, performance, and safety for our Navy’s aviation community,” said Lori Basham, NAWCAD’s principal investigator for the study. “Updating our data to accurately characterize our aircrew will address the needs of a population that is drastically different than it was in the 1960s.”
NAWCAD is seeking participation from more than 4,000 active-duty, enlisted, and commissioned aviators, flight officers, and aircrew. The research team will measure these service members across the country when they tour the Navy’s most populous air bases from May 9 through December 2023. Participation in the 30-50 minute study will require 32 simple body measurements that include various heights, lengths, breadths, and circumferences that are relevant to aircrew. Researchers will remove personal information to protect participant privacy.
Traditional anthropometric studies are expensive, historically costing between $6 and $14 million dollars in industry settings, depending on the scope of effort. Today, NAWCAD can perform its own study almost completely in-house, costing the Navy less than $2 million, due to the command’s advanced 3D scanning hardware and expertise as well as supportive technology and subject matter experts through other services and industry partnerships.
For more information on the study or for participation coordination, contact Lt. Jennifer Knapp at [email protected]. For study technical questions, contact Lori Brattin Basham at [email protected].
The Naval Air Warfare Center Aircraft Division employs more than 17,000 military, civilian and contract personnel. It operates test ranges, laboratories and aircraft in support of test, evaluation, research, development and sustainment of everything flown by the Navy and Marine Corps. Based in Patuxent River, Maryland, the command also has major sites in St. Inigoes, Maryland, Lakehurst, New Jersey, and Orlando, Florida.
Lt. Jennifer Knapp, an aerospace experimental psychologist and former naval flight officer, stands for body measurements by an anthropometry scientist of the Naval Air Warfare Center Aircraft Division at Naval Air Station Patuxent River, Maryland. Knapp is the military liaison helping lead the Navy’s first comprehensive study since 1964 to update aviator size requirements, improve aircrew gear and equipment, and expand access for prospective future aviators. This is the first Navy study focused on aircrew demographic differences across gender, age, and race/ethnicity since the 1960s. The command seeks participation by more than 4,000 active-duty enlisted and commissioned aviators, flight officers, and aircrew members across the country on its tour of the Navy’s most populous air bases between May 9 and December 2023. (U.S. Navy photo by Chuck Regner)
Lt. Jennifer Knapp, an aerospace experimental psychologist and former naval flight officer, sits for head measurements by anthropometry scientist Lori Brattin Basham of the Naval Air Warfare Center Aircraft Division at Naval Air Station Patuxent River, Maryland. Knapp is the military liaison helping lead the Navy’s first comprehensive study since 1964 to update aviator size requirements, and Brattin Basham is the principal investigator spearheading the study. Brattin Basham and her human systems engineering team aim to gather a series of 32 measurements from more than 4,000 active aircrew across the Naval Aviation community through the end of 2023. (U.S. Navy photo by Chuck Regner)
